Big Big Day on Lavinia

Today was a big, busy day :) The Kids had all sorts of activities and fun times :)

All the kids went to school this morning, and I picked up Taylor at noon so she could come home and get ready for her Music Festival. She was in the Piano class today, 9 years old, playing Red Robin Rag. Which she has been practicing for a few months now.
Taylor heading into her recital. She was so nervous! She said her belly didnt feel well. She also didnt want to go to sleep last night lol. She didnt practice enough IMO but what do I know. She was really tired of this song. lol

The big piano where they played their music. lol We were not allowed to take any photos during playing nor were we allowed to video record, so I have no record of her actual performance. lol but I did the best I could to get some photos of her
waiting very nervously for her turn. She was chewing her nails which she doesnt do, and she was jittery. She never used to be so nervous, she has performed a lot in front of others but the older she gets, the worse it is. I guess it is always like that. She ended up with a score of 83 which is really good, I dont know how she placed because they only place the top 3 but she was only 3 points off first so I think she did super good! She had the whole song memorized and didnt even look at her music.

After the festival we picked up the other kids at school, and went home. The kids got out their books and Scott came home in time to play on bikes. He took Annika's training wheels both off, and away she went! Just like that! She is riding a two wheeler!!!











So big big day for her!! :):):):):)

Before supper I did my running for the Learn to Run club and then I finished it up by going to Curves and working out pretty good there. :)

After I came home and ate I took Holly to Ball Hockey. She played really EXTREMELY well. I am so glad she likes it and she met some new friends there lol!
The team came together pretty good tonight and they won 7-1. I wish I had taken the camera :)

Pics from last week :)

Gittin Crafty Again

After a very very long break from doing anything crafty, Ive kind of picked some stuff up again. Im crocheting a gift, and today thanks to Sarah's persuasion, we made these very interesting flower buckets. Hers was a gift, mine was just to bring home for awhile.
We went shopping at Dollarama and put together a neat collection of ingredients, and then we went to it!

We got silver buckets (pretty darned neat ones) and put in sahara. We found these very tall green twisty stems, and after Scott cut them off, we stuck them into the sahara and arranged them. Because they were twisty, they twined around each other.

Packages of die cut flowers gave us a lot of colour to play with. we glued them to the stems and some down the stems. We added the pointy ends of the tall stems to add extra greenery and interest. Tied some ribbon knots around the stems.

We covered the sahara with gravel, and then because Sarah was making a gift, she added lots of candy around the stems, and glued Tootsie Rolls to the back of the big flowers.

I got this cute ribbon and tied it around the handle of the bucket.

Put more flowers on the bucket. Could have had a greeting or something wordy here, or nothing at all. Works both ways.



the finished product, could make such an awesome gift, any theme, any colours and items on the stems used. VERY Fun!

Cuba Experience 6: Leaving

The night before we left, we went to the last show. It was an extremely busy, exciting show. There were lots of dances and singing, and The dancers were so impressive, wish I could show just how good they were!!\
We dressed up for dinner again, last night and all..

Scott's special friend Lizandra, who called him the King of NO because everytime she saw him she tried to get him to dance, and he always said NO. I know exactly what she means. He does say no in a very mean way, so he danced ith her that night.



The finale of the show, with much to see. Dont quite get all the costumes, but it was pretty neat to see all the dancing :):):)

the last day was a long, unreal day. It seemed like the week had passed so fast, and nothing seemed as tho it had happened. I still could not believe we were there, and we were leaving!

We didnt leave the resort until 5 pm, so we had the last day to wander around. we had limited time in the rooms, lol so we only were at the pool for awhile before we had to shower and be clean :)

we walked on the beach really early, not really wanting to leave it. :) it was HOT!


Tree


Sillyness

The building where we had lunch most often. The beach Bar.

Scenery.

After we had showered and checked out of all the rooms, there wasnt a whole lot to do but sit in the lobby. At least we had a good seating area :) We had arranged a cab to take us to the airport rather than the shuttle so that we could book really good seats :) so we were waiting.
The View out of the lobby.

The Skylight in the lobby


View from the third floor of our building.

Scott and I decided we had time for one more walk on the beach. It was so hard to think of leaving here! We walked a long way down, the tide was mostly out, we saw some strange huge birds that we had watched all week and still have not figured out what they were. We saw the boat go out that pulls the parachute with people on it, we saw the funny glider boat again. We saw a wedding going on I think at the resort next door. And we walked.

Scott telling me to move my butt, it was time to get off the beach, time to head for the lobby, find our cab, get to the airport early early so we could get the good seats :):):)
The cab and driver. I am telling you, this was on scary car. No window wind downs on the inside, no springs and shocks from what I could tell. it was frightening, adding to that the way everyone drives, the cows all over the roads, pulling in and around other drivers who dont have any more rules than we did...It was Fun! There was some rain coming in the distance, by the time we got to the airport it was raining nicely.

Going through customs was scary again, we didn't hide anything (much) but the formality of it all makes one instantly feel guilty. But we got to the other side after stressfully checking into our Exit Row seats, and went upstairs.

Here is Sarah when we are happily waiting the plane, the trip home.

The view down the airport, where we were waiting. we should have only had a short wait, an hour or two.




Sarah after we discovered that our plane had turned back to Toronto and wasnt on its way. We waited for HOURS. And it was So cold in the terminal...air conditioning gone mad I think, and we could not go outside to warm up, and we could not get warm clothes...so I shivered for like 6 hours.

We were in a total time crunch. The plane coming from Toronto had engine troubles and had to go all the way back to Toronto to change planes. Or something. And we had to get off Cuba by 1 am, or we would not have been allowed to take off until 7 the next morning due to some sort of airspace restrictions. We left at 12:55 am. And we had a connecting flight to make. And We were not supposed to land in TO during the night, Im not sure I understand that one but someone said the airline would have to pay a fine for having landed in the middle of the night.

We slept some on the plane and watched movies, it was a nice flight.

On the plane in TO, it's now my birthday and I was sleepy and anxious to get home to the kids and all, so relieved to be ON the correct flight.


Pulling away from the gate for our last flight before landing at home.

Sunrise on the plane was kinda neat, not near as nice as the beach but it was kind of nice to watch :):)





And full circle back to planet Nova Scotia and the cold reality of daily Grind. I was THRILLED to see the kids but so so missing the beach! I think I can face it now because summer is finally almost here, and I can imagine being warm and happy again lol

This is long and drawn out but kind of intended to be a bit of a "journal" that I will be scrapbooking these photos from. I will be adding things as I go along but if you made it this far, thanks for reading!!!!

Cuba Experience 5

Dress Up!!



We had a rather fancy night out, at the Mexican restaurant.We dressed up and ordered from a menu and were served! We also were serenaded and I wish I had gotten video of it, the fellow singer was just amazing and the group lovely singing Quanta la Mela.


One night at the Disco, Sarah was picked to compete in Men against Women. It was freaking hilarious, they had to do all sorts of things, like passing a spoon up and down their clothing, act out a script acted out by the entertainers, and playing a bizarre musical chairs.

i could hear this bird singing loudly and beautifully every morning, so one morning I tracked him down, and found this little Bohemian Mockingbird in the tree. he was a nice morning treat.

Towards the end of the visit I was inspired to grab the camera and take photos of everything so I wouldnt forget it.


This was the open roof area in the lobby. We enjoyed this open space in the mornings with our first and sometimes second coffee :)


The statue in the lobby where we drank our coffee under the open ceiling.


the open veranda between the buildings, where we would sit at night.



The ceiling in the buffet where we ate most of our meals...

The freshly squeezed orange juice we had every morning, tasted like oranges a cup, I called it my Cup of Sunshine.

the omelet and peaches I had for breakfast most mornings. Yum, ya sure do get used to variety. Hard to come home to cheerios.




the computer room where we checked our email every morning. Ritual. Lovely artwork in there.



The hallway where we bought most of our souveniers from the vendors. They were fairly good about trading stuff for stuff. Like Scott's sneakers and jacket and sweater and bathing suit.


This neat boat with a glider would go up and down every day, taking people up and down and along the beach.

the boys relaxing on the beach.


A Self portrait


Palm Shadow


We went kayaking twice from the beach, first alone and then with Sarah and Brian :)


it was great exercise and so nice to see the scenery from the water.

the beach from the boat. Once you got used to paddling and not rocking the boat, this was extremely relaxing :)

Then we went snorkling along the beach, I was looking for shells and stuff that was moving, didnt see much that was actually interesting lol but it was fun to swim in that warm, clear water. amazing!

Boating away


Most days in the afternoon the entertainment staff would put on shows. they were usually funny, very nice dancing, excellent cuban singing. I loved the music, wish I had bought a cd.


The dancers were extremely talented, carrying on different shows daily and nightly. I dont know how they werent exhausted all the time!

The day we left the housekeepers left a cute note on this elephant lol They often left the towels in interesting figures.